Author Archives: robryan65

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About robryan65

fallible human, like a phoenix runner spouse, father, grandpa, Jesus lover, creative, real ale, rum and malt whisky drinker dancing - expressing only personal views.

end hunger fast

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logo_invertIm quite open about my views of the church I am ordained in. I love and hold to the frustration of St Augustine when he says ‘the church is a whore, but she’s our mother’.

I love the church … I’m convinced that the church is ‘of Christ’ …but sometimes she (that’s the church in case any of you sensitive types out there just thought I alluded to a feminine Christ figure!) frustrates the hell out of me. But today … after my sadness earlier in the week I am incredibly proud to be part of the Anglican set up.

It’s an amazing step, and such a right step, to see the Bishops letter signed by 27 Anglican bishops, challenging the government on the horrible reality of poverty in our country. The letter starts; ‘Britain is the world’s seventh largest economy and yet people are going hungry’ before then mentioning ‘one in five mothers report regularly skipping meals to better feed their children’. That tugs a heart string … I have met some of those mothers in Gillingham High Street … mums that would love to work, but there are no jobs, mums that want the best for their children, and put themselves last.

‘There is an acute moral imperative to act’ is the challenge the bishops give … and indeed there is. The bishops are taking a great step by going public like this. Some will roll out the old saying of ‘church should keep out of politics’ (In fact that was tweeted to me only last week by a prospective MP candidate!) but that betrays a lack of understanding of the gospels, and in particular the political figure of Christ. Christ tells stories to illustrate that our role in society is to stand up for, and help, the poor and those in need … not to ignore, stay silent or walk by on the other side.

The letter comes as part of the End Hunger Fast campaign which headlines with more shocking figures … ‘half a million people used food banks last year … while 5500 were admitted to hospital for malnutrition’. The campaign calls for a national fasting day on April 4th as one way of showing the government we, as a nation, want to see change.

In addition Church Urban Fund has put together this guide to the welfare reforms which outlines the changes and the consequences of them.

The time has come for the government, for Cameron and Clegg in particular, to stand up, admit this is not working, and act …. as Bishop Steven Cottrell says: ‘it’s scandalous in our society that we should need a single food bank, yet along hundreds of them’.

Lets join and pray and act with the aim of never needing a food bank again!

just be you

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30-x-24-reclaimed-billboard-and-spray-paint-on-canvas-just-be-you-tiful-brush-pink-paintA couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to join with the CMS pioneer course for a module, as well as join them for one of their Wednesday lunchtime Pioneer Witness sessions.

The CMS Pioneer Leadership Training Course is an excellent looking course … and I’ve recommended it in the past and not so quietly wished it was an option when I was trained for ordained ministry. Although … there is always the MA which one day I must grasp … (any sponsors out there want to help me get my brain working again …?)

The reason I love this course is that it seems to acknowledge and echoes the reality that God places us and God uses us, with the gifts and interests that God has already given us, rather than leaving us thinking we need to know a lot more or develop new skills before we can be of any use to ourselves or God.

As an illustration I smile when I think back over my time in Rochester. I really did not know what to do or how to connect with people. I did know my particular passions; I like people, I love coffee, I love beer, I’m into football and love art. Those things make up the person that I am. I did not realise or understand how amazingly God would use those things in my life.

Three years into that Rochester thing, as I reflected I was forced to laugh with my spiritual director as we identified that, pretty amazingly, God was doing nothing more than allowing me to use what I was already interested in. So … I was sat a lot in the pub and in coffee shops. I have found some great friends in the art community who I still chat with now and had loads of conversations in the pub about football. The only other gift I really needed to develop was an understanding of what it means to be present and real, keeping integrity with people I had grown to love.

It seemed that God had created me with my interests and passions … and that is how God wanted to use me! Amazing to think that God used my love of beer, coffee, art and football … but he did. It continues today in Gillingham.

This month  the CMS Pioneer Friends update interviews Erika, who uses her passion for nails in her nail bar in a coffee space. I find that refreshing and amazing.

So … the point of my post today? If you are wondering how God is going to use you … ask yourself …

‘what am I already passionate about and interested in?’

… It’s likely that the stuff you are already doing, and loving doing, is the very thing that God wants to cultivate and grow and bless as you meet and link with others.

What this world, our personal communities, need are Christians that love life, love what they are doing, in that John 10:10 way … living life to the full … surely means enjoying life too. We talk of a hope in Christ … we need to live in the laughter and joy of that hope.

So … to speak simply … just be you!
God created you as you.
Surely …
That’s got to be enough!

love is just … err love!

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love-inspirational-dailyThere seems to be a recurring theme of sadness over discrimination and treatment of people coming through my thoughts and writings at the moment. I have been aware for some time that one of the things that really does ignite my personal anger is seeing someone treated unjustly, unfairly and simply not being treated with respect.

This upsets me because one of the core theological beliefs that fires me is that we are ALL made in the image of God. While this does not mean we are divine in any way, it does mean we are unique in our relationship with God and it means we are all worthy of respect and love. Not only all of us individually, but all of us personally! If this is true then we cannot choose who to respect or treat fairly based on our opinions of colour, gender, sexuality, or any other personal features. If we are all created in the image of God, then we are all created in the image of God and  all of every person is created in the Image of God.

Yet … a lot of church discussions at the moment seem to be focussed on doctrine and behaviour, rather than this simple mutuality of being created in God’s image.

One thing in particular that has saddened me this week is the ‘pastoral’ letter from the House of Bishops. I was encouraged by Bishop Alan’s response here…. who quotes Sister Simone Campbell ‘following the gospel mens be not afraid, welcome everyone, hug them, welcome them close and live and love’. While that encourages me …. the blog of Rachel simply makes me weep … the reality of this situation is simply not good news.

Why is it so difficult to accept that love is love, and that, actually, none of us, whatever our sexuality, has ever had any choice about who we fall in love with! 

If it doesn’t look like Jesus, it’s not God!

christ centred community

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imgresYesterday was one of those quiet but packed days that I often get as a pioneer. Quiet meaning that I never really talked significantly with anyone, and packed in that I was out most of the day, in the community, and engaging briefly with a variety of people in a variety of ways.

Following from yesterdays post I was painfully aware that i came across a lot of people who have not taken on board, maybe not even ever heard, that they were created, loved and fully accepted by their God. Today I came across raw unacceptance expressing itself in a steely commitment to a belief of inadequacy.

Everywhere I looked i seemed to see people that, in my opinion, seemed to be feeling that they are simply not good enough, not worthy of respect, worthless and useless. That thought makes me sad for this area, for people I am getting to know and for people I am looking to engage with.

Occasionally, and today being one of those occasions, I am asked to verbalise what it is that I am actually trying to achieve …. and the simple answer that comes is that ‘I am trying to build a Christ centred community’. We could ask and argue ‘what does that mean’, ‘isn’t that just a trendy name for church?’ or even ‘more meaningless Christian jargon’

Well maybe … but todays conversations and thinkings have made me think more seriously about booking a place on the Oasis conference titled: ‘Change makers: Building Holistic, Christ Centred Communities‘ …. the sessions do look pretty amazing…. and it won’t do any harm, and will probably result in a lot of cross fertilisation of ideas … so maybe i’ll see you there!

the face you had before you were born

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urlI find today’s Richard Rohr comment strikes a nerve with me.

Your True Self is who you objectively are from the beginning, in the mind and heart of God, “the face you had before you were born,” as the Zen masters say. It’s who you were before you did anything right or anything wrong. It is your substantial self, your absolute identity, which can be neither gained nor lost by any technique, group affiliation, morality, or formula whatsoever’

Last week I spoke with the same Christian man I spoke of yesterday with the strong sexist and racist views. He outlined how he thought all babies were born evil and condemned to hell unless they ‘accepted Jesus as their personal lord and saviour’. He used the concept or ‘original sin’ to justify this. To me that doesn’t look much like Jesus so it can’t have anything to do with God.

Today I baptised a beautiful baby today called Toby. Toby is the son of Zoe and Tony who I married when I was a curate at the cathedral – my first wedding at the cathedral. This was one of those real privilege situations which do not come around very often. But … as I held Toby in my arms … to think of him in any other terms than blessing and perfection does not really have much of Jesus in it … so can it be of God?

I have never fully accepted or resonated with Augustine’s concept of original sin. If we look at the Genesis accounts, God looks at creation and says ‘it is good’; next God looks at humankind, who are created in God’s image, and says ‘they are VERY good’.

Our ORIGINAL state as humanity is one that God calls very good. Not just ‘good’ like the rest of creation, but ‘very good’ …. even better than creation. Just let that sink in a  minute …. I’ve tried and can’t …. I’ve seen some pretty amazing parts of God’s creation which are stunning …. and yet to hear, believe and accept that God thinks I am even better than them is a pretty mind blowing concept.

But … just because it is mind blowing … and hard to accept … does not neutralise the truth that it is so! 

I think that blows any ideas of the original-ness of sin or evil right out of the water, beyond the sea, over the mountains, through the stratosphere and into a totally different solar system! One that doesn’t exist! Rather than original sin I think we are created in original perfection or original blessedness, because this is our original state.

If we could fully accept and live our lives out of that … wouldn’t that be pretty amazing!

if it doesn’t look like Jesus, it’s not God!

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imagesThis may come as a little shock … but I have avoided a lot of the mainstream evangelical mass produced Christian stuff over the last couple of years. I have done so because a lot of it simply leaves me feeling sad. What I interpret, read and hear as a lot of legalism of how one should act, dress, believe and behave worries me as I try to follow a God who is full of love, grace and acceptance.

Rather than being sad I smiled with delight when I came across this article in Christianity magazine by Steve Chalke. Some people will read no further because I am linking to Steve … it astounds me that a large part of the evangelical church here can, one minute hold someone like Steve up with pride and then, when he starts to challenge their thinking, dismiss him and refuse to take him seriously, even accusing him of being a heretic.

I loved reading Steve’s article as he simply asks us, ‘have we misread the bible?’ For a long time many have been saying so … but Steve is one of the first to stand up from within evangelicalism and challenge some strongly held, and in my opinion wrongly held, evangelical views. Steve challenges us to take the whole Bible seriously, and not just keep pulling out parts that support the argument we wish to represent.  ‘If we fail to take the whole bible seriously including those bits we find unpalatable or inconvenient’, says Steve, ‘we only pay lip service to its authority’. Despite what some might say, Steve is not watering down the Bible, but the exact opposite – he wants it taken in complete seriousness!

One important aid to interpretation that I loved comes from a simple saying, ‘if it doesn’t look like Jesus, it’s not God’. Jesus is both our guide to biblical interpretation and to life.

Last week I came into a conversation with a Christian man arguing with a young woman. He was quite foul in his attitude and language on top of extreme sexism and unpleasant racism thrown in as well. He backed his views up entirely with scripture … but my problem was … it didn’t look one iota like Jesus. The man expressed an ugly unattractive legalistic view of faith. It did not look like Jesus, so how can it of been God?

As Steve draws out the bible does not give us answers to a number of spiritual and moral issues. our task, as Christian community then, is to wrestle with the meaning of these words both honestly and humbly.

On a different, but very related note, I loved this article on Rachel’s blog. The way the bible has been misinterpreted to control and abuse woman has been something that angers rather than saddens me. Rachel’s article is cleverly written, light and humorous … but with a seriously deep challenge.

You see… this whole thing of taking stuff out of context and forgetting what Jesus is like means we become distorted to the point of ugliness in how we act as Christians. If we don’t look like the Jesus of the gospels then there is something seriously wrong … and when Christians stand outside clinics or airports with foul signs of hate and intimidation …. then something is very seriously wrong.

So … go read the articles – Steve’s here and Rachel’s here.

Then …. come back … and talk … there will be some of you that disagree!

overcome fear – embrace love

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I loved reading the Archbishops Presidential Address to Synod …. some personal highlights to draw out:

the church is not a closed system because God is involved and where he is involved there is no limit to what can happen, and no limit to human flourishing.

The love has to be demonstrated and the trust has to be earned.  But the love cannot be demonstrated if it is refused and the trust cannot be earned without the iterative process of it being received and reinforced in the reception.

A church that loves those with whom the majority deeply disagree is a church that will be unpleasantly challenging to a world

When it (church) works well it works because love overcomes fear.  When it works badly it is because fear overcomes love.

The speech is worth reading in its completeness …. but the above quotes are highlights for me. They excite me because they talk of a church that is gritty and real … a church that wants to get its hands dirty and make a difference …. but a church that knows, in order to make that difference, it needs to unite and accept its diversity of opinion.

We don’t all agree but we are all on the same journey… we can all still love each other and move forward together! I don’t think Archbishop Justin is saying for one minute that we compromise or pretend …. that’s the gritty bit … he suggests that this will be hard and messy because moving forward together does not mean we all have to agree with each other. In our disagreement we can trust each other. When we trust each other we can achieve.

When we enter into competition or can’t accept disagreement we allow fear to prevent that achieving.

Round our dinner table last night we touched on this in a lateral way. My family got frustrated with me as I talked of being tired of hearing and writing clever sermons, or people making interesting points, or maybe even scoring points. I said I was tired of people who feel leadership is about ‘do what I say’ and ‘respect’ rather than how can we achieve this together to make a difference in this place. I said I was tired of people that want to control and dictate rather than let go, enable, set free and let God.

I just want to see transformation.
I don’t want to see revival across the nation, I don’t want to see churches packed out, I want to see people meeting Christ, people realising that no matter how crappy and hard their lives are that Christ does, will and can make a difference; not because Christ will take it all away and make it all better but because Christ stands in the crap with them and walks with them through it.
I want to see my little hard pressed forgotten and looked down upon community of Gillingham shine in the realisation of a grace and love that says …. ‘come … you are welcome … no need to change … no need to jump through hoops … no need for anything but yourself … just come’

If we can embrace love and overcome fear … well who knows … with God there is no limit to human flourishing …. so some of that dream might actually happen.

Want to join us???

chasing clouds

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cloudsIt’s been quiet here for nearly a week. This is due to a lot of my brain space being taken up with gathering rhythm of life stuff. I know people are following our journey so I thought a brief update might serve to … errrr update you, but also help me to pinpoint where my feelings are at the moment, for me to reference and return to in a few weeks time.

For the past few months we have been talking a lot about what it means to ‘belong’. Does ‘belonging’ involve, or even make a demand, of commitment to a relationship? Or … is belonging more about a commitment to travel together with no commitment to a relationship? Or … is it a bit of both? Or … is it something wildly different.

This particular aspiration is taking us a while to write. We are struggling to find something we can all agree on. We have had three major discussions and we are still talking. On one hand, I would like to register that I am finding this process so slow and frustrating. BUT … On the other hand, I am excited that we, as a community of people, are willingly spending so much time to try and get this right for our present point in time. I’m excited because this effort is being expended because we all believe each other in the community matters.

I’m excited because we are seeing that progress here makes quite big demands of us. To develop something authentic we are seeing that we need to be seriously honest with each other, exposed and vulnerable. Understandably we are finding this hard … but strangely there is something of a positive vibe in the air … like a bright summer day when the clouds seem to be bouncing off and chasing each other in a playful way.

So … if you are following our journey, and are the praying type …. please join us in praying that we can sort out what we believe it means to belong.

I have a deanery synod buzz!

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Sometimes I am surprised that the standard CofE stuff that I have to do can be pretty exciting and encouraging. Tonight I went to Deanery Synod. Deanery Synods across the nation have a bit of a reputation for being slow, tiresome and not very interesting.

Tonight was different. Tonight we were tasked with looking at a Deanery Ministry and Mission plan. Before we got onto this, though, I gave a 15 min presentation on what I have been up to as Priest Missioner for the last 18 months. As part of that I shared the Fresh Expressions sequence that distinguishes between how a fresh expression and how a traditional church plant are set up differently. The different sequence seemed to really inspire people.

church plant

I outlined how traditional church plants start with a group of people with a particular style with worship as a starting point which people are invited to; and then out of this flows community, discipleship and the mission of the group.

fx

I then showed how with fresh expressions, such as the gathering, that worship evolves later on. The process here, which the gathering is following, has been one of discerning and following what God seems to be calling us to do, asking what loving service looks like in our setting … and doing it! From this community grows, discipleship starts to happen and worship evolves. 

Tonight’s Deanery Synod seemed to get excited by this latter process … particularly with the ‘what does loving service look like here’ because they could see that this was a great place to start.

The conversation about the ministry and mission planned followed this presentation tonight, and I hope the gathering and my story has been able to help us think more laterally about mission in Gillingham. One idea was even to replicate the boot fair model we successfully trialled last year and spread it across the deanery. That would be very cool!

Tonight I was very inspired and people, my colleagues, said some very kind and encouraging things. This was a great meeting and the enthusiasm for mission that makes a real transformational difference to communities is an illustration of why I was ordained in this beautiful, infuriating, broad inclusive church.

Unexpectedly I have returned from Deanery Synod buzzing …. so no sleep yet then!

The mad dog walker!

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20140131-100240.jpgI have come to realise that dog walking is seriously bad for your health! Not only do you have to get up early in the morning and go out late at night in all weathers and bump into all types of people and all types of dog, not only do you risk life and limb sliding up, or down, muddy banks as the dog smells rabbit, not only do you risk contracting various diseases by picking up dog crap in very thin little plastic bags which don’t always protect your hands (!) …. but it seems also that it opens you to the risk of seemingly talking aloud to yourself and giving the impression to others that you have an imaginary friend!

I realised this last night when another dog walker gave me an incredibly odd look as it dawned on me that the conversation I was having with God (ie prayer) that I thought was in my head was, quite obviously, being said aloud! At 1130pm, when decent people are inside their warm homes either asleep or drinking good whisky, and it is quiet and calm …. one lone voice can travel quite a long way!

I mean … if you saw a giant 6’2 bloke in black raincoat and wellies with a nearly as tall greyhound charging towards you while having a conversation with a seemingly invisible friend …. what would you do! An old WWJD bracelet I saw lying around made me think that Jesus’ response if coming across such a scene with his disciples may well have been to command someone or something to come out!!!

So … now I have a reputation of talking to myself while I walk the dog …. great!

But that’s not the real danger. The real danger is that this prayer stuff, while walking, while I seemingly lose myself in both walk and nature and prayer is flipping real stuff! I don’t mean my prayers are better then anyone else’s …. but what I am noticing is that for the first time in a little while my prayers are nakedly honest. With that naked honesty comes a certain vulnerability and revealing of brokenness which means that some stuff can be dealt with. The danger with honesty is that you need to step out from hiding, and stepping into the open in that way can be a dangerous thing to do.

So is this hard? Yes
Does it hurt? Yes
Is it backbreaking, crappy hard slog stuff! Yes
Does it help! Yes

I am relearning that it’s very easy to hide. I have remembered that journeys start or take a new direction only after someone steps out, but that stepping out is the quite often the mad and dangerous thing to do. It’s a high risk thing too as when you step out others don’t necessarily join you. So, it’s pretty mad on all fronts really.

Well …. I have never made any claim that I was sane have I?
Off to step out a little more … with and without the dog!